The Lost Art of Listening (23 page)

expressing your feelings and that I’m only supposed to acknowledge them?

How do I know what you want if you don’t tell me?”

One reason Jay had trouble hearing Elise was that she expressed

herself with anxious emotion. Even clear, meaningful messages were so

charged with feeling that Jay reacted to her anxiety rather than to her

statement. Instead of getting through to him, she became something to

brace against.

Elise gets excitable and raises her voice because she’s been holding

things in and is eager to get them out. But when she gets anxious, Jay gets

tense, and he’s more aware of the knot in his stomach than of what Elise

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131

is trying to tell him. When she told him how much it bothered her that

he always disagreed with her, it was the upset she conveyed that made him

defensive, not the message.

No matter how they tried, Elise and Jay were never able to hear each

other in heated discussions. Only when I interrupted and talked to them

one at a time were they able to listen without a defensive response. It

turned out that Elise had grown up with a father who demanded adher-

ence to his rules and dismissed his children’s opinions. Both Jay and Elise

recalled her brother and his habit of responding to even the most insignifi-

cant disagreement as though it were a declaration of war: “Either you’re

with me, or you’re against me!”

Jay and Elise aren’t very different from many couples who sometimes

despair of ever really being listened to by each other. If you want to be

heard, consider how much emotionality and anxiety you have—or how

much gets churned up when you talk about certain things. Listeners react

to that emotion. If you can reduce your emotional pressure, you may get

heard, even when the subject is difficult. Remember: it isn’t so much what

you say as how you say it that determines whether or not you get heard.

That’s one reason people are often more open to what they read than to

what someone says to them. (At least I hope so.)

Let’s take another look at the interaction between Jay and Elise. Jay

had trouble hearing his wife because she expressed herself with anxious

emotion, her sentences flapping at him like flags in a high wind. When

her voice rankled and he shrank into himself, he didn’t hear the sweet,

eager girl he fell in love with but an echo of harshness from long ago. The

“he” who was doing the hearing wasn’t the part of him who was strong and

loved his wife but a little boy part, the one who could never stand to hear

that harsh and powerful voice telling him that he couldn’t go out to play,

that he had to stay in the house all afternoon buried alive in chores.

Is it men Medusa turns to stone, or the little boys inside them?

Hurt Feelings and Broken Connections

As a family therapist, I’m often consulted about impasses in relationships.

Wives complain that their husbands don’t care how they feel; husbands

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THE REAL REASONS PEOPLE DON’T LISTEN

grumble that their wives nag; parents protest that their children avoid

them; siblings insist that they’re singled out unfairly; and adult children

lament that they can’t get close to their parents. Many of these individu-

als come to therapy by themselves because the people they’re concerned

about refuse even to talk about the problem.

Michael’s sister Susan moved to the West Coast after a bitter divorce.

When she called from Los Angeles to talk to him, her ex- husband, who

just happened to have stopped by, answered the phone. Susan was furi-

ous. She felt betrayed and stopped speaking to her brother. When Susan

didn’t return Michael’s phone calls, he got so upset that he took a plane to

California the next day to straighten things out. But when he got there,

Susan left town for the weekend because she wasn’t ready to talk to him.

Michael was livid. He could understand that she was upset, but he hadn’t

done anything wrong. And to refuse to see him after he had gone all the

way to California—that he could not forgive.

The first step to healing a ruptured relationship is to understand the

other person’s point of view. Try to figure out what that person might be

feeling and then say it in a way that invites him to elaborate. Until you

acknowledge the other person’s position, he is unlikely to be open to yours.

He may listen, but he won’t hear.

When you demonstrate a willingness to listen with a

minimum of defensiveness, criticism, or impatience, you are

giving the gift of understanding—and earning the right to

have it reciprocated.

Michael tried to apologize to his sister, but his heart wasn’t in it. After

all, he hadn’t done anything wrong. So although he said he was sorry

she was upset, he just had to add that he hadn’t done anything wrong.

Unfortunately, when someone feels aggrieved, any attempt to justify your

own behavior, no matter how innocent or well meaning, may cancel your

acknowledgment of her feelings. Michael was infuriated when his sister

refused to see him, but she rightly intuited that his attempt to make up

How Emotionality Makes Us Defensive
133

carried the pressure for her to forgive him. If Susan had been less upset,

Michael’s attempts to heal the breach might have worked. But when some-

one is really hurt, the only thing he or she wants to hear is an apology, not

an apology loaded with self- justification. The greatest lesson in humility

may be learning to say “I’m sorry I hurt you” without having to protest your

innocence.

I saw Michael a total of three times over several months. In our first

meeting I made exactly the same mistake I am preaching against here.

Instead of acknowledging his resentment, I advised him to reach out to his

sister. Since he felt that he’d already done so and been spurned, he rejected

my advice.

Our second meeting occurred five months later. He’d been getting on

with his life and had calmed down about the falling-out with his sister. Time

and distance had softened his bitterness, and he was ready for suggestions

about how to patch up the break. I advised him to write a letter acknowledg-

ing the hurt and betrayal Susan felt and say that he was sorry. I cautioned

him that the letter must be absolutely devoid of two elements that would

render it ineffective: any hint of self- justification, expressed or implied, and

any suggestion, expressed or implied, that his sister needed to do something

about his apology. It had to be an unconditional apology—“I’m sorry I hurt

you”—nothing more and nothing less. I also warned him that his sister’s first

response might be an angry one— something that can be hard to take when

you apologize. He understood that and said he could accept it.

Four days after Michael wrote to his sister, he received a letter from

her saying how betrayed she felt when her ex- husband answered the phone

at her own brother’s house. How could Michael have been so insensitive?

After that Susan’s letter lightened. She wrote about her job in California

and a new friendship and asked Michael what he was up to. They’ve been

on good terms ever since.

“He Never Talks to Me”

How can you be a good listener when certain people seem to withhold

themselves from you and resist all your efforts at intimacy?

People are reticent in relationships because they don’t want to get

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THE REAL REASONS PEOPLE DON’T LISTEN

hurt. The introvert moves through life in a protective bubble of psycho-

logical distance not because his need for attention has ceased but because

he’s ceased to allow himself to feel it. Inside the prison of his defenses he

preoccupies himself with other things. He keeps busy, he reads, he thinks,

and he has long conversations in his head, where no one else can mess

them up. Like many prisoners, he can be comfortable in his limited and

protected routines, but the idea of parole into the wide world of other

people and emotions terrifies him.

Although the emotional reticence of someone you care about can

be powerfully frustrating, the reticent don’t feel powerful. They feel vul-

nerable. People who withhold themselves from us are trying to insulate

themselves from their own sensitivity to criticism or rejection. It isn’t all

them, either. In the process of trying to get closer to someone who doesn’t

say much, we often set up a pursuer– distancer dynamic.

Pursuers and Distancers

One of the most easily observed conversational patterns between intimate

partners is the pursuer– distancer dynamic.1

As you may have noticed, pursuing distancers only makes them feel

pressured and inclined to pull farther away. It’s a dance between one person

who moves forward and another who moves back. The pursuer– distancer

dynamic is propelled by emotional reactivity—in both participants. The

people who pull away from us aren’t just “shy” or “withholding”; they’re

responding to the pressure with which we approach them. I can almost

hear the protests: “I don’t put any pressure on so-and-so; he [or she] just

won’t open up.”

We rarely feel the emotional demands we put on others. What we

feel is their response to it. The people who resist conversation with us may

indeed be more reticent than most. Still, their backing off is not just habit

but response.

Unfortunately, some of the people we find hardest to listen to are an

important part of our lives: They are our partners, our parents, our chil-

1Thomas Fogarty, “The Distancer and the Pursuer,”
The Family
, 1979,
7
, 11–16.

How Emotionality Makes Us Defensive
135

dren, our bosses, or our colleagues, and they arouse our reactivity because

our need endows them with the power to please and distress us. When the

frustrations of trying to listen and be heard get to be too much, we may be

tempted to give up.

Facing encounters that raise your anxiety tests your maturity, strength-

ens you if you have the courage to stand fast and let matters unfold, or

weakens you if you fall back into reactivity and defensiveness. Making

contact, letting others be themselves while you continue to be yourself,

and learning to resist automatic reactions strengthens you and transforms

your relationships. Staying open and staying calm—that’s the hardest part.

You do the best you can.

If all of this seems obvious—to listen well, you have to resist the urge

to overreact—it’s only obvious from an objective distance. Up close, when

you’re caught up in the pressure to get the words out or the aggravation of

listening to someone saying something you don’t want to hear, objectivity

is in short supply. Emotionality takes over.

Exercises

1.
Practice responsive listening twice in the coming week. First with

someone who’s easy to talk with. You probably won’t be defusing an

argument; you’ll just be using responsive listening to draw the other

person out a little more than usual. Second, pick someone you’re likely

to have a disagreement with. Plan in advance to use responsive lis-

tening and avoid giving your side of the argument until at least a day

later.

2.
To test your flexibility in a pursuer– distancer relationship, try the fol-

lowing for a week. If you are a pursuer, try backing off, and see what

happens. Don’t pout or get passive aggressive; just spend more time on

your own. If you are a distancer, try initiating some mutually enjoyable

activity before the pursuer has a chance to approach you.

N.B. These experiments are not designed to cause any kind of per-

manent change in the pattern; they are merely experiments to help you

explore the possibility of becoming more flexible.

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THE REAL REASONS PEOPLE DON’T LISTEN

3.
To practice dealing with criticism, find an occasion to invite it. Plan in

advance to respond without getting defensive. Listen without arguing.

Invite the critic to say more. Then acknowledge what you think you

heard and invite him or her to elaborate or correct your understand-

ing.

Part Three

…

Getting Through

to Each Other

GETTING THROUGH TO EACH OTHER

How to Let Go of Your Own Needs and Listen

7

…

“Take Your Time—

I’m Listening”

How to Let Go of Your Own

Needs and Listen

Real listening requires
attention
,
appreciation
, and
affirmation.
You begin the process by tuning in to the other person, paying attention to what he

or she has to say. Put no barriers between you. Turn off the TV, put down

the newspaper, ask the kids to play in the other room, shut the door to your

office. Look directly at the speaker and concentrate on what he or she is

trying to communicate.

Practice listening whenever your partner, family member, friend, or

colleague speaks to you, with the sole intention of understanding what